Is adaptation of the Word Accentuation Test of Premorbid Intelligence necessary for use among older, Spanish-speaking immigrants in the United States?

Abstract

Adaptations of the National Adult Reading Test (NART) for assessing premorbid intelligence in languages other than English requires (a) generating word-items that are rare and do not follow grapheme-to-phoneme mappings common in that language, and (b) subsequent validation against a cognitive battery normed on the population of interest. Such tests exist for Italy, France, Spain, and Argentina, all normed against national versions of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale. Given the varieties of Spanish spoken in the United States, the adaptation of the Spanish Word Accentuation Test (WAT) requires re-validating the original word list, plus possible new items, against a cognitive battery that has been normed on Spanish-speakers from many countries. This study reports the generation of 55 additional words and revalidation in a sample of 80 older, Spanish-dominant immigrants. The Batería Woodcock-Muñoz Revisada (BWM-R), normed on Spanish speakers from six countries and five U.S. states, was used to establish criterion validity. The original WAT word list accounted for 77% of the variance in the BWM-R and 58% of the variance in Ravens Colored Progressive Matrices, suggesting that the unmodified list possesses adequate predictive validity as an indicator of intelligence. Regression equations are provided for estimating BWM-R and Ravens scores from WAT scores. (JINS, 2006, 12, 391-399.)

Estimating Intelligence in Spanish: Regression Equations With the Word Accentuation Test and Demographic Variables in Latin America

“…This combination explained 76% of the IQ variance, about 13% more than with demographic variables alone and about 8% more than with the WAT-R alone. This result contradicts other studies with smaller and=or more restricted samples (e.g., Schrauf et al, 2006) and converges with other studies (Crawford, Stewart, Parker, Besson, & , which found that the combination of variables explained around 70% of the variance. Indeed, a higher proportion of cases were around 10 points within the real IQ with the combined approach, compared with worse estimation with demographic variables and the WAT-R alone.…”

“…A ''hold'' test-the WAT-R-demographic variables, and their combination were compared. The WAT-R showed a high internal consistency (.95), as has been published in similar English (Nelson, 1982;Nelson & Willison, 1991) and Spanish tests (Burin et al, 2000;Del Ser et al, 1997;Krueger et al, 2006;Schrauf et al, 2006). There were high and significant correlations between the WAT-R and IQ, showing convergent validity as has been found for similar tests Lowe & Rogers, 2011;Schretlen et al, 2005) and previous WAT versions (Del Ser et al, 1997;Krueger et al, 2006;Schrauf et al, 2006).…”

“…Within this sample (n ¼ 45), they derived a regression equation with WAT-Chicago, education, and age estimating FSIQ. In the same vein, Schrauf, Weintraub, and Navarro (2006) also sought to validate a word accentuation test for older Spanish-speaking U.S. immigrants. The sample included 80 older Spanish speakers aged 13 and 80 years old who had immigrated 2 SIERRA SANJURJO ET AL.…”

Intelligence, cognition, and major neurocognitive disorders: From constructs to measures

“…In opaque languages, reading irregular words is based on familiarity instead of pronunciation rules. As a result, the adaptation of irregular word reading tasks in languages with high grapheme-phoneme correspondence poses particular challenges, and estimating premorbid intelligence with these tasks may vary in function of the grapheme-phoneme consistency in a specific language [17] . Finally, the use of these tasks in patients with specific language deficits (e.g., learning disorders, aphasia, or language variants of MND) poses several limitations [12] .…”

Development of a word accentuation test for predicting cognitive performance in Portuguese-speaking populations

“…Using that rationale, the WAT requests participants to read aloud a list of words without the accent marks. The WAT has been demonstrated to have adequate properties in Spain, Argentina, Colombia, and among Spanishspeaking immigrants in the United States 15,16,17,18 .…”